A BRIEF EXAMINATION OP FREE-TIIAUE PPJNTIPLES 355 



other foods in tlie United Kingdom, and still there would be no 

 departure from the universal law that (joods must be paid for in 

 fjoods. Tlic United Kingdom would have to pay for her home- 

 grown agricultural produce in precisely tlie same manner as 

 she now pays Argentina, liussia, and the United States for the 

 corn and other foods they supply us with — namely — in other 

 commodities. 



Whatever may be the amount of agricultural produce grown 

 on British soil, it must be paid for chiefly in British manu- 

 factures, goods, or other commodities demanding the employment 

 of British labour. In spite, then, of all the fme-spun subtleties 

 of economic "science" and the mendaciousnessof tlie Manchester 

 School, who fancy they would lose by destroying existing con- 

 ditions, British merchants must continue to import from foreign 

 countries that vast amount of raw material which must come 

 to us annually, to enable British manufacturers to supply goods 

 in exchange for British grown wheat and other agricultural 

 produce. It is, moreover, plain that there would be no diminu- 

 tion in value or in volume of these annual imports, because, 

 since produce must be paid for by produce, goods, commodities, 

 or whatever term we prefer to use, it matters not to British 

 merchants and manufacturers whether Britain grows her own 

 corn or whether she imports it. 



British-grown Wheat paid for in British Manufactures 



Since, then, the fact stands out with remarkable clearness, 

 that under every conceivable economic condition that can be 

 applied to this question, British manufactures and British 

 merchants and traders must necessarily produce goods of British 

 make and give them in exchange for agricultural produce of 

 like value, whether grown in this country or hivportcd from 

 cd)road, the question which naturally suggests itself to the 

 mind of every British subject, who remains untainted by the 

 views of party politics and unfettered by the restrictions of a 

 narrow economical creed is — "Why was so shallow a pretext, 

 containing, as it does, an elementary economical error, ever 

 put forward ? " Those responsible for the proposition can best 

 demonstrate it. 



The point now under consideration is this — 



Fallacy 5. " Other countries arc, for the most part, self-support- 

 ing as regards food ; in this respect the case of Great Britain 

 is exceptional." 



To dispossess a country of its natural means of self-support 

 and then to charge it with being in an exceptional position in 



